Poor Man's Arboretum

Last Friday I had big plans to take a vacation day so that I could take Maison to the Dallas Arboretum to see "Dallas in Bloom" and to take pictures in her Easter dress. Trying to pose a 5 mo old for pictures when she can't sit up unassisted is pretty much impossible by yourself so Shari agreed to take the afternoon off and go with me. Shari does NOT take off work very often and when she does it has to be really worth it; so I was very flattered that she had agreed to go with us. Somehow in the almost 30 years we have lived here, Shari has never been to the Arboretum and I have been about 10 times. I'm not sure why that is...

So we planned to meet for lunch around 1:00 and then head to the Arboretum. Unfortunately, Maison planned to get sick several times, each time requiring a change of clothing and resulting in us not arriving at lunch until 2:00. I am always late but an entire hour late is a little much even for me. Needless to say, Shari was not very happy with me when we arrived.

To make the afternoon just perfect, Maison decide to not take her bottle and scream through the latter part of lunch drawing stares from the "parkies" that were eating on the patio next to us. I was mortified, frustrated, and starving considering I didn't get to eat much of my lunch and the morning's festivities prevented me from eating prior to that. We headed to the Arboretum around 3:00...a good 1 1/2 hours later than planned.

On the way, Shari needed to drop off her new car to get the bluetooth phone system set up. The service rep said it would only take 5 min and we should just wait. 45 mins later I was still sitting in the parking lot with a screaming child in the car with me. At 4:00 I decide the Arboretum was a no-go considering they closed at 5:00 and Maison was scheduled to eat again at 5:30 which was impossible to make it home from Dallas in rush hour if we were to leave at 5:00.

So I decided we should just go take pictures in Shari's neighborhood considering I had to be on my way back home by 4:30. We changed Maison into her Easter dress in my car, loaded up the stroller, and walked a couple of blocks to the retirement homes that had the best flowers. Shari and I walked through their flower beds, plopped down Maison in her bumbo chair, and started shooting as many pictures as we could before she cried, drooled on her dress, or got sick again.

We were quite a sight...both of us crawling in the flower beds to pose Maison, getting our jeans covered in mud, while my butt was hanging out as I attempted to take pictures. After what we had been through so far nothing was going to stop me from getting at least a few good shots. Not even a resident who had to fight her way through all our stuff we had politely left on the sidewalk that was the pedistrian entrance to her complex.

Here is the "Poor Man's Arboretum" in all it's glory:

     

Check out the "Private property" sign a few feet behind my head ;o)

     

     

     

Of course HK had to make the trip:     

    

Give me that tulip!

When we got home I found a nice surprise...Maison has a tooth! Yes, the poor little thing had a tooth that had already broken through her gums. No wonder she was so fussy!